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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462316">Hollowed Out</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilookedback/pseuds/ilookedback'>ilookedback</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hyggetober Challenge Ficlets [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Equalizer (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domesticity, F/M, a bit angsty, but like, dave is fucked up, sooo...</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:49:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>492</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462316</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilookedback/pseuds/ilookedback</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s different, these days.</p><p>The change has come about gradually, growing with time ever since he’d come home with the tips of his hair singed after missing that explosion by a matter of yards and pure, blessed luck. The light in his eyes, so bright when she’d first met him and he was all eagerness and easy laughter, has grown dimmer, the sweet smile lines of his face fallen into frowning, serious looks more often than not.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave York/Carol York</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hyggetober Challenge Ficlets [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952407</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hollowed Out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For day 24 of my Hyggetober Ficlet Challenge, which is based off of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B201-j7ljdU/?igshid=1pflwcl5260me">this prompt list</a> and will span several Pedro fandoms. Today's prompt is "pumpkin."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’s different, these days.</p><p>The change has come about gradually, growing with time ever since he’d come home with the tips of his hair singed after missing that explosion by a matter of yards and pure, blessed luck. The light in his eyes, so bright when she’d first met him and he was all eagerness and easy laughter, has grown dimmer, the sweet smile lines of his face fallen into frowning, serious looks more often than not.</p><p>He hides it well from the kids—and <em>thank God</em>, she thinks, <em>that he is still so kind to their girls</em>—but he slips in front of her sometimes. Lets the smile fall and the solemn expression take over. That faraway look like he’s not really there, like his mind is working on some problem no one else can see.</p><p>She wants to ask him in those moments, what it is he’s got on his mind, what is so different now—if it’s his job, or it’s her, or it’s—</p><p>Something else. Or someone.</p><p>But she has never been the brave one, out of the two of them, and she isn’t brave enough now to hear the answer.</p><p>He travels for work, for weeks at a time, and she takes the kids to school and sets three places for dinner and thinks about getting a dog just to make the house less lonely and the space in her bed less empty when he’s away. And he brings her back chocolates, or a designer pocketbook he thinks she’ll like, or on her happiest days, a souvenir spoon for her collection, even though he doesn’t understand it. He shakes his head every time, watching her slot them into place on the rack by the buffet, and his smile looks real, an echo of those fond looks he used to give her back in the day when everything felt easier.</p><p>He’s here now, focused and present. Molly is staring in rapt attention, expression awed, and it reminds her of being that age with her own father, how infallible he was by default, back then. Able to do anything and answer any question with authority.</p><p>He scrapes at the skin of the pumpkin, cutting shallowly into the flesh and then deeper in places, slowly carving out a design that will come to life as soon as dusk falls and they light a candle inside it. The girls <em>ooh</em> and <em>aah</em> and he smiles at their attention, joking lightly with them.</p><p>It feels normal, like what she’s been missing. She wipes a string of pumpkin off of her girl’s hand and smiles at him and says, “You’re good with that knife,” and—</p><p>He meets her eyes and his face is shuttered, just for a moment before he puts on a smile, but it makes her stomach churn.</p><p>“Thanks, hon,” he tells her, and he twists the knife, and she feels it in her gut.</p><p>He is so different, these days.</p>
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